Wilfred De’ath
I love the smell of cheap aftershave in the early morning.
That is the predominant odour in the Salvation Army hostel, to which my night shelter in Cambridge has subcontracted its rough sleepers during the cold weather. (We sleep in sleepingbags on the floor.) The smell is curiously addictive…
We drift in at about 7pm and are subjected to a thorough frisking and body-search by the employees or jobsworths, as I call them. At about 7.30, some king of a meal is served: a meat stew with lumpy mashed potatoes and veg, followed by a stodgy pudding, badly in need of custard.
At about 8, our ‘bedding’ is brought down, contained in torn black plastic bags not large enough for purpose. The TV blasts the very violent, explicit, X-rated films which my fellow sleepers seem to prefer. As an old man, the senior resident, I am subjected to continuous bullying, harassment, intimidation, persecution and threats.
After a few days (nights, really), I have had enough of all this and, some money having arrived from The Oldie or the RLF (Royal Literary Fund), I return to the Cambridge Youth Hostel Association accommodation, near the station.
It costs £26 per night – half the price of a local bed and breakfast – although I have to share a room with five other men, generally Africans or Arabs. At this time of year, they are mostly scholars and consequently quiet and considerate. (There are no other Englishmen.)
My usual night shelter is still housed in a local church. But it has now been taken over by the council and has, therefore, lost a lot of its original humanitarian ethos. In despair at my current circumstances, I retreat to their Sunday morning worship, presided over by a young Jamaican preacher named Linda. She is extremely nice and very intelligent – and very attractive. She is actually 44 but looks about 30.
Linda invited me to address her English class, which she holds every Monday lunchtime in the church for French, German, Italian and Spanish students.
We decided to make The Oldie the subject of my talk and I was surprised how bright the students were and how interested they were in this publication, whose readers must be, on average, 50 years older than they are.
Linda was kind enough to introduce me as ‘the George Orwell de nos jours’. How kind!